A child asked his mother, how did the world end―with a bang or with a whimper?
The mother considered the question, then spoke sadly, with lots of bangs, child, and lots of whimpers. Great calamities were unleashed on us, and by us, like Pandora and her box. Too many to defeat.
The child asked, what happened next? After the world ended?
The mother replied, to escape the calamities, we made ourselves a hell.
Why hell, Mother? Why not a heaven instead?
My child, it started off as heaven, but remember this, the most important lesson we learned: All heavens turn into hell.
―From Parables for Children after DomeFall
#
Fall
Lucian's father sat in the damp dark, marooned in grief. A breeze from the open window above his son's cooling body smelled of salt and seaweed. Moonlight poured in too, illuminating the rictus of Lucian's face. He leaned forward to study his son's last expression. Was anguish frozen there? Regret? How he longed for ordinary grief, not realizing until this moment that grief came in terrible gradations.
It was the least of his misunderstanding. He pulled back, wincing as if the moonlight had turned bright as Sol. He tried to remember the child he'd known before Lucian's terrible obsession had overcome him.
#
Child . . . but soon I cannot call you that. You are nearly grown, and every day more world-wise. Be patient and let me tell you one more story. You think you have heard all of our stories. It may be true that you can recite them by heart―stories of a time when people lived under a dome made of light and machines tinier than the eye could see.
The Dome blocked out the sky, and held back the ocean until the coast was dry as the desert. You learned how the people lived inside for so long they forgot what the outside was like. For the people of the Dome there was no weather, no wind or rain or storms. No blue sky. Sol was barely visible, a faded disc you could hardly see.
You learned how the people had chips injected their heads, which allowed them to communicate with each other, and be immersed in certain people's lives. The lives of avatars. The people watched and worshipped the avatars as though they were gods. And like gods, the avatars were beautiful, but vain and cruel. They rejoiced in violence and rituals of death. You know from the stories that they were not worthy of the people's devotion. You know how a few brave people fought to reveal the depth of their cruel control.
You learned even gods can be defeated. And when they were finally overthrown and the age of the avatars came to its end, the Dome splintered apart and the tiny machines holding it together fell to the ground in snowflake-sized clumps. When the Dome fell, many people still blindly followed the avatars, and did so to their deaths. When the wind and the storms were finally loosed upon the land again, they were buried by the earth itself.
That wasn't the end. Some of the people chose not to follow the avatars. By this choice, they were freed. They looked up frightened, but joyous too, at the sight of the blue sky and shining Sol. It meant the return of storms and seasons and the great ocean flooding back to the dried out coast. These survivors, your ancestors, learned to live without the Dome's protection.
These are the stories you know. To live under a dome is to trade freedom for security. To blindly follow cruel gods is prison of a deeper kind.
Do these stories bore you now? Be patient and let me tell you one more. It is not one of the old stories. It is not for young children at bedtime. It is for children like you, almost grown and world-wise.
#
Fall
Last spring it had been Lucian's idea to build their tiny mod-house on the jagged cliff with crashing waves beneath. His son had wanted the never-ending view of the ocean, and he'd been right. They'd never ceased to enjoy it, as precarious as it sometimes felt. Building their home had been the last easy time they'd spent together. Planning and then snapping the pieces into place, had been a simple, innocuous goal. They'd had discussions rather than arguments; good-natured ribbing instead of hurtful jabs.
Now with Lucian's body stiffening in death, he put a fist to his chest, pressing his knuckles hard as his heart roiled beneath.
#
Last spring
Lucian climbed into the back of the pickup, then scooted into his sleeping bag. Wiped out from the day's exertion, he sighed with relief to be still beneath stars set against the night sky. Waves crashed beneath them, the best kind of noise to sleep by. Even though it was only the back of a truck, it felt luxurious.
His father lay tucked inside his own bag next to him. All the pieces of their mod-house were laid in place. They would put it together tomorrow. He was doubly pleased to have convinced his father to set it up here, even though it was a precarious position on the jagged cliff. But it was only for the summer and they'd tear it down before the rougher weather of fall.
More than the view on the cliff was the pleasure of a vast coastline and hardly any people. It was a place the avatars used to come play their sick games and indulge the equally sick desires of their followers.
His father was the best historian-researcher-archaeologist in New California. He'd figured out that the last avatar, a woman, was buried somewhere on this desolate stretch of coast, most likely in a mass grave with dozens of her followers. He was one of very few trusted with the special detector that could locate her chip among all the other regular skeletons. He'd scrape off her brainchip from inside of her skull and destroy it.
Lucian shivered, wanting to go to sleep, but the thought of finding the avatar was too exciting. "What will you do when we find her? Will you miss the searching?"
His father answered, sounding tired but amused. "I'll be glad to be done with it."
Lucian was sure he detected a false note. "Really? All these years you've been searching for them and now it's the last one and you'll be glad when you've found her?"
"I'll be glad when I've found it, yes. My life won't be over, Luce."
"They'll make you curator of the museum. No one has found as many burial sites and destroyed as many avatars as you."
"Most likely yes. It'll be a good life. We'll live in proper society then. You'll go to an actual school instead of using your tablet." His father couldn't see Lucian scowl, but somehow knew it anyway. "I know you like this life of exploration. I've been lucky to have you with me all these years. But you'll appreciate living around people too, I promise."
Lucian yawned, still doubtful. He did like thinking about the museum. All his life they'd collected artifacts for it. He liked the thought of them neatly displayed, neatly annotated. Although his father would make sure it would also be, well, dull. Maybe not for people who loved history, but definitely dull for most. It troubled him. If people felt they weren't getting the whole picture, a complete view of Dome society and not just all the bad bits, then wouldn't they get resentful? Most people weren't as smart as his dad, but they could sense when they weren't being told everything. He grimaced in the dark. Ironic. His father was a scientist and supposed to be impartial, but he believed the avatars were totally corrupt and so he found only the evidence to prove his belief.
"Dad, are you still awake? Because I was just thinking . . ."
He could feel his father shifting. "Yes, I'm enjoying the stars. But I'm interested in your thought."
He took a deep breath. He'd wanted to ask this question for a long time. He didn't know why he decided on now. Maybe because he couldn't see his dad's face. Maybe because his dad was in such a good mood. "If the brainchips can't work without the artificial being who ran the Dome, and that being's long gone, then why destroy them all?"
Lucian's stomach twisted in the long pause before his father finally answered, speaking slowly and carefully. "Because it's possible that certain dangerous technologies could one day be recreated. It would be easier to do so with a brainchip, especially an avatar's. It would be a temptation for certain―" He paused again. "―types of people. We are obligated as citizens of a free society to protect future generations from the mistakes made by the domers, who sacrificed their humanity for security. Who unknowingly enslaved themselves. The Dome was a terrible experiment that went too far. That's why all the brainchips must be found and destroyed."
His answer wasn't surprising. They'd had similar discussions even if he'd never asked so directly before. "But what if the information on the chips could be retrieved? Wouldn't it be important to know? Even if it's only to make sure the history is accurate." He balled his fists under the covers. Was there a more convincing way to make his point?
He could feel his father clench. Heard him breathe deeply until his body relaxed again. "There's no evidence that data on brainchips could ever be recovered."
He didn't argue though he thought, once the last brainchip is destroyed you'll never know. And what did his dad mean by certain types of people? Technology wasn't inherently bad, although it could, obviously, be used for bad. And he knew that the Dome's technology had eliminated mental health disorders that were again plaguing some people of New California. He took a tight breath. His dad would say they'd done it by turning everyone into high-functioning drug addicts, but still―what if there was a way to use that technology for good? How would they ever know if they destroyed every last brainchip in existence?
His father began to snore gently. Lucian was still wound up, his head fizzy as if he'd drunk an old-fashioned carbonated drink too fast. He waited another few minutes to make sure Dad was sound asleep, then he sat up and fumbled for his backpack, tucked into the corner of the truck bed.
He took out his tablet, a rectangular device, which looked blocky and inelegant when compared to the domers' wearable tech dug up in the expeditions. He opened a picture he'd found in doing his own research on the avatars. His father knew nothing about it and would definitely not approve even though it was only a simple picture file.
It wasn't even in color. It wasn't even a real picture―only a pencil sketch, digitized, of a young woman. At least she looked young, but avatars were notorious for looking young even if actually very old. They had used lots of body and hormone enhancements. The Dome had blocked out all of Sol's harmful light.
It was supposed to be a picture of the last avatar, the one they were looking for.
The woman, if she was the last avatar, didn't look anything like how his father described them―corrupted, lecherous, beyond redemption. She looked innocent. He would even say she looked nice.
He looked at her for a long time. So much information had already been destroyed about the avatars. He didn't even know her name.
An idea, more of a dream since he'd started drifting off, struck him. What if he could find the avatar's chip before his dad? What if he could keep it from being destroyed? Then maybe one day some future person would discover how to retrieve its data. Maybe they'd discover something that would benefit people, while leaving out the bad parts of Dome society.
He'd be a hero then, wouldn't he?
He shook himself awake enough to close the file and shove the tablet back in his pack. Sleep followed with the idea still roiling in his mind. Taking root.
The next day, he and his father snapped the pieces of their mod-house into place. They worked well together, laughing at stupid jokes, enjoying each other's company. He didn't think about the avatar once. Well, maybe once. Turned out to be the last simple, easy time they spent together.
#
Fall
If he disguised Lucian's wound and caused another no one would discover what his son had done. A tragic death, but soon forgotten. No. He could not bear his son be forgotten.
But neither could he mutilate the body more than Lucian had done already.
And yet . . . the unavoidable fact was that in his final abhorrent act, Lucian had been successful. If this terrible success became known to the people of New California, it could destroy their nascent society, only a few generations past Domefall. The last of their ancestors to survive it, who had borne witness to that corrupted society, had died the year Lucian was born. Their new society had the necessary stories to thrive, but was still fragile as a fledgling plant, not able to survive a temporary lack of sustenance. It was unbearable to think that an irresponsible and arrogant teenage boy, his own son, had discovered what could destroy it.
#
Child, here is the story.
Time passed and the survivors of Domefall and those born to them prospered. They called their society New California. It wasn't perfect because they weren't perfect, but they did their best to make sure it was a kind and just place. Mostly it was. And if they weren't always perfectly content, they understood that the human condition was imperfect. They understood the price of happiness is the freedom to experience its opposite.
More time passed and the last survivors died. Their grown children worried that the age of the avatars would seem less like history than legend, only stories to be read at bedtime. They wondered how to portray the corrupted Dome to their children and all the generations that followed. They decided to send teams of excavators to find all the burial sites of those who died in Domefall, to destroy the vilest of its technology―the brainchips.
Afterwards they would build a museum of that time, a somber place where children could learn how the quest for perfection, for utopia, leads instead to hell.
These excavators scoured the land once imprisoned by the Dome. They were stolid and rational-minded scientists, who abhorred the idea of a people slavish and dependent upon those who fancied themselves gods.
One summer they brought along an apprentice, a boy not quite grown, who had a lively temperament and a vivid imagination. He possessed a deep curiosity about the time of the Dome. The boy wondered, although he dared not say aloud, if it was as terrible as the stories warned. He secretly wished to uncover some other truth of that time, something not in the popular stories. If he did, he imagined his people would see him as special and brave.
#
Last summer
Lucian's father stood on the beach, looking down at a pit full of bones. It was the largest excavation he'd been in charge of. Overhead, Sol burned behind clouds. In a few hours the clouds would be gone and there would be nothing to mitigate its hottest rays.
He'd need to send for another team to make swifter progress. The half dozen they had were good workers, but even if he and Lucian pitched in full time, they'd need more people to do the job properly by the end of the summer, to find and catalog all the artifacts and the remains and, of course, strip and destroy all of the brainchips. Unfortunately, the last Sol-be-damned avatar was proving elusive. She was somewhere deep in the tangled pile of skeletons, most likely smothered to death by her horde of followers. Not an easy death, but the one she deserved.
He looked up from the pit, visoring hand over eyes. Lucian should have shown up by now. The boy―he shouldn't call him a boy anymore but a young man―seemed to have sprouted a foot since they'd built their mod-house in the spring. He'd grown an obstinate attitude to match. What was the matter with Lucian? Considered rational discussions were to be encouraged, but his son reacted as if his salient points were personal insults.
There, finally. The boy had come down from their cliff home and into the tents set up around the piles of artifacts the excavators had brought up from the pit. The tents let them keep working during the hottest part of the day, sealing artifacts into bags and putting them in crates to be hauled off to the museum.
Watching Lucian work in the tents, he found himself itchy with anticipation to be done with these digs and retired from their nomadic lifestyle. The museum would enable them to live in the populated urban center of New California. Lucian could finally have a normal young person's life. Hopefully their relationship would normalize as well.
He made his way to Lucian, the sand shuffling over the tops of his sandals. He should praise the boy for doing what seemed to be a diligent job. He would admit that he'd been short with his son lately. Lucian claimed to be bored with the burial site and wanted to do his own exploration along the coastline. He was inclined to grant his son's wish. Another team of excavators would give Lucian more freedom. Perhaps time to himself was all his son needed to get his head back on straight.
As he approached he smiled, even though it felt strained. "Look who's not sleeping in for once!"
Lucian returned his gaze with narrowed eyes. "Hey Dad, I was wondering if I could have the afternoon off? I'll get through the stuff that's already here." He pointed to the piles of detritus. "I know what everything is. This is cool though―" He picked up an item, already sanitized and bagged. "We don't usually see these on sites this late in the Dome era." Through the clear plastic Lucian's father recognized the small gun-shaped device.
He smiled again, easier this time. "That's right. In the avatar age, manual injectors like these were rarely used. They'd been chipping in utero for a long time."
Lucian mused, "A nostalgia piece like part of a collection? Maybe they were setting up a museum like we are." The boy gave him a sloe-eyed look, innocent. Hope surged―was he sick and tired of their arguing as well? Lucian continued, blinking wide, "Not that we'll ever know, since you've been systematically destroying all the data caches that might answer such questions."
His middle section clenched tight, his breathing instantly restricted, as if Lucian had thrown an actual punch at him. Dear Sol, he was exhausted by this child.
Lucian stared with the pitying expression of someone much older.
He didn't try to mask the bitterness he tasted so clearly. "Go then. Leave. Now."
#
Lucian's calves burned from the sprint on the sand and he slowed gradually to a jog, jumping driftwood and clumps of weird seaweed shaped like bullwhips. The chip injector bounced in his jacket pocket. He felt guilty taking it, but the museum had plenty such items. Besides, he deserved some small memento of the burial site, especially since it wasn't like they were paying him for all the work he'd done this summer.
He also felt slightly bad for jabbing Dad like that. But come on, his father gave as good as he got. Anyway wasn't that what teenagers were supposed to do―challenge their parent? Still maybe he'd pushed too far. He could be a little easier, less overtly antagonistic, for the rest of the summer. But he wished his father would try to understand his point of view. He wanted the museum to be a more immersive experience instead of some dull didactic place. Also his dad accused him of being enamored of Dome culture when he simply wanted to learn about it. For better or worse it was the society that had birthed their own. That alone made it important. And now his own father played a key role in destroying all firsthand knowledge of it.
If Dad had his way, he'd strip the memory of the Dome entirely from the historical record. Recognizing he couldn't do that, he was determined to spoon feed the people of New California only tiny approved bites, upholding his belief in the Dome's corruption. His father didn't get that you shouldn't manipulate people into only one point of view.
Lucian veered toward driftwood he'd shaped to form an arrow on the sand. Beyond it, a stream flowed from the ocean to some rocks jutting out of the cliff. He spun around to make sure he was alone. Someday he'd prove his father wrong.
He'd already made a discovery that proved his father was wrong about one thing. One very important thing.
He followed the stream between the rocks and into a cave. He ducked inside, careful not to scrape his head on the rocky ceiling. He made his way towards the back of the cave because there, on a rocky shelf, lay the last avatar.
She seemed to be sleeping. But when he approached, she woke and smiled at him eagerly, gesturing for him to come and sit by her side.
He wasn't surprised that she was so happy to see him. After all, she'd been alone for an epically long time since dying at Domefall. Now, she had many stories to tell him.
#
Child, that summer the team of excavators unearthed one of the largest burial sites they'd ever found on a remote stretch of coastline, a beach set against impressive cliffs. They brought up skeleton after skeleton after skeleton until the golden sand teemed with shining bones. Stoic as they were, they cheered when the last one was brought to the surface and laid out with the rest.
They saw how its bones had a perfect symmetry with small even teeth, glistening like pearls. Looking at the teeth it was easy to imagine how she (for it was clearly a she) smiled, how toned was her feminine shape, how smooth was her glowing skin. Whatever color her hair, she wore it like a crown.
The excavators murmured amongst themselves. They were not easily impressed, and far from delusional about the era of these skeletons when they’d been flesh and breath.
They were grateful to have been born after. None of them wished to be subject to the whims of cruel gods. But despite all of that, this one perfect skeleton hushed them into reverence. For she was from the pantheon of the Dome, one of their goddesses.
They’d found an avatar.
If the excavators were awed by the bones of the avatar, their apprentice was startled into a vivid waking dream in which the avatar was no longer a skeleton but a living stunning woman.
Like he had double vision, at once aware of the normal outside world but seeing her too, inside his mind. The woman gestured to him warmly but soon―too soon―she faded away. How could he feel so disappointed when he had only imagined her?
The excavators turned back to their job of cataloging the remains. Acting on a sudden strange impulse, the boy waited until no one was looking, then stripped the tiny brainchip from the avatar's skull. To hide it, he put it in his mouth, under his tongue. It felt like he was saving her from a terrible unknown fate.
When the boy was relieved of his duties for the day, he returned to their camp high above the burial site on a cliff overlooking the ocean. As soon as he had a moment to recover from the day's labor, the vision of the beautiful woman came flooding back. He kept the chip in his mouth, reassured by its presence and the fact he had saved it.
The night stayed warm and the ocean below restless. The boy fell asleep outside, listening to the crashing of the waves. He began to dream. He was walking on the beach near the burial site, but there were no waves surging into shore. No ocean at all, only dry cracked earth stretching as far as he could see. It might have been twilight. Sol had faded in the sky, barely visible.
For a long time he was alone. Then someone whispered his name. He whirled around but saw no one.
"Who is it?" He cried out even as he knew it was the woman he'd imagined earlier. "What do you want?"
She didn't answer. Instead, everything started melting away―the cliff, the beach, the dried out coast―all melting into a dun-colored haze, until he couldn't see anything.
The boy jolted awake, gasping. Sol had only begun creeping into the sky.
His tongue probed the inside of his mouth, but the chip was gone. Had he swallowed it accidentally? He got up and went to the edge of the cliff.
Once more he was saturated in that hazy light, thick and misty. But this time he wasn't afraid. Finally the mist swirled into the shape of the woman.
He asked again, "Who are you?"
"I am the last avatar and you are very brave," she said, smiling. "That is why I wanted you to have my chip."
"Am I dreaming?"
"Not anymore." Her teeth, her skin, her hair, everything about her, shone bright as Sol. He was struck again by how lovely she was and how kindly she looked at him.
#
Lucian laughed outright at himself. Her bones had such a lovely symmetry to them, so it was easy to imagine the woman she'd been. If only he could communicate with her! He had so many questions only she could answer.
He'd found her last week and was still flushed with pride about it. He'd almost told his father just to see the look on his face.
He sat down next to her perfect lovely bones. At the base of the inside of her skull, her brainchip shone a soft gold. He had already decided that he didn't want anyone to know he'd found her. Maybe later, but for now she was for him and him alone.
He touched the chip injector in one pocket. From another he pulled out his worn copy of Parables for Children After Domefall. Silly, but he liked reading the stories to her. If they could meet in some parallel dimension, he thought these stories would be a good place to start their conversation.
#
In the days that followed, the apprentice worked hard at the dig so he could be done early and go to the cliff's edge where the beautiful avatar liked to appear. He couldn't understand how he could see her and talk to her and often wondered if it wasn't only his imagination. She laughed and assured him that she was real even if she was only real to him.
One night he could barely make out her shape. She seemed unhappy, faded into the darkness, barely more than a shadow. He asked her what was the matter.
"I was thinking of my life. Even though I have you to talk to now, I'm used to being connected to many others. I was never alone."
"I want to know what it was like. I want to be able to tell my people the truth about you."
She shook her head. "Telling . . . no, I wouldn't know how to describe it in words. But showing . . . I could show you. You'd have to accept me as your avatar. Then you could see what I've seen and feel what I've felt."
He shivered from the cold sea breeze, looking away. "I don't know . . ."
"If you are brave enough then you can tell your people what my life was like." He still didn't look at her. "You've already been so brave to save my chip. I haven't the strength to stay any longer tonight. Think about my offer."
His eyes jerked back. Too late. She was gone. He missed her, even when she was just a shade in the night. He sat in between the roots of a stunted tree, its branches tangled above him in a giant knot. He thought about her offer―an intimate knowledge of her life. He thought about how he would be the only person in the world to possess it.
#
Lucian stepped inside the mod-house, an hour or two past sunset, yawning even as his stomach grumbled for something to eat. He'd stayed later than he'd planned. Luckily their tiny kitchen was well-stocked. He'd make a quick meal of smoked meat and cheese, then go to bed.
A light glimmered under the door to his father's bedroom. He moved as quietly as he could. He intended to wake early and spend a full day at the dig as a way to apologize for his earlier behavior, but he had no wish to see his father tonight.
No such luck. Dad popped his head out. "Late night."
He used the same measured tone. "Just getting something to eat and then hitting the sack."
"Lucian . . . wait, I wanted to talk to you."
"What―" It came out more annoyed than he wanted. "Sure."
His father stepped all the way out. "Today we removed the last skeleton from the site. Unfortunately the avatar's not here. Still, I'm convinced she's nearby. Somehow she escaped her followers and found a place to shelter along the coast. It was futile of course, her brainchip would have killed her at Domefall. Anyway, it means we need to widen our search."
He found himself digging his nails into the palms of his hands. "Okay."
"You've been exploring the coast, which I assume includes the nearby caves? She's out there somewhere and I'd like you to be our guide, help us narrow the search. In fact, I'd like to offer you a paid position, contingent on us finding the remains. Would you like that?"
He swallowed hard. His father trusting him to be in charge felt good. He paused for a moment so Dad would think he was seriously considering the offer. "Sure, that'd be great."
His father expelled pent up breath, clearly relieved. Lucian felt another twinge of guilt. "Glad to hear it. Let's try to get an early start, say around Solrise, all right?"
"Yep, I'll skip dinner tonight then. Straight to bed."
"We'll fix a nice breakfast before we go." Dad's smile made him wince, but he nodded as they both retreated to their separate rooms.
He had no intention of helping his father find the avatar.
#
Lucian's father woke up so early it was still dark. He wanted to make a full breakfast for them. Eggs and pancakes with lots of syrup, just as Lucian liked it. This day would be a new start. By giving Lucian actual responsibility, he would appreciate the trust his father had placed in him.
He was mixing up batter when Sol's light began to illuminate their small house through the windows and the roof's solar panels. He turned off the lights and went to knock on Lucian's bedroom door. When he didn't get a response, sleepy or otherwise, he eased the door open, whispering, "Time to get up―"
But Lucian's bed was empty. From the looks of it, he hadn't slept there all night. He crumpled against the doorframe, stinging with fresh disappointment.
#
Lucian entered the cave gasping for breath, his sprint on the beach enabled by the bright light of a full moon. Thank Sol for that at least. He knew his father wouldn't stop until he found every last brainchip. He'd resolved to do what he must to save the avatar's chip. He told himself it was the best solution until the day he could retrieve its data. The day they could learn the truth of the avatar's lives.
If the chip was part of him, then his father couldn't destroy it.
He switched on the lantern he'd brought to illuminate the cave. With the excavator's tool, he prised the chip from the inside of the avatar's skull. His father would destroy history. He had to keep it safe until he could figure out a way to access its data, buried deep in the data archives. He was his father's son―digging was something he knew how to do.
Someday.
He stared at the tiny gold disc, as his conviction grew hard as the rocky walls around him.
He put the chip inside the injector, then placed it at the base of his skull. It cradled the top of his neck, and he shivered from its cool touch. Before he could lose his nerve, he pulled the trigger.
The pain lasted only a second, followed by a tingling and then a numbing. He waited, but nothing else happened.
He lay down on the rock shelf next to the bones of the avatar, and tried to sleep.
#
The apprentice couldn't sleep that night. He stayed at the cliff's edge listening to the waves crash into the jagged rocks below. As dawn broke, he whispered to the avatar, pledging to follow her. He would become her follower.
Instantly she appeared, reaching for him. Her eyes glittered fiercely, full of something he couldn't identify, a hardness he hadn't seen before. He pulled back. A prickle of fear ran down his spine. She seemed exultant, but about what?
She was no longer incorporeal. She grabbed him with both hands and pulled him towards her with a strength that made him gasp. And then . . . he stepped into her.
He closed his eyes for a fleeting moment. When he opened them, he was staring out of her eyes, into the memories of her life in the Dome.
Child . . . the things he saw. The life of a cruel goddess. Do you remember your stories? He saw the truth of them. He saw the vanity, callousness, and brutality. She promised to show him again and again for the rest of his life. She needed him to watch. It didn't matter to her whether he watched in lust or awe or disgust.
He was an innocent gentle boy, if misguided.
He watched in horror.
#
Lucian slept dreamlessly in the avatar's cave. In the morning, he startled awake thinking that he'd been foolish. Because he'd hoped―
Stupid, but he'd hoped to see her life, recorded by her chip.
But the Dome's technology had been dependent on many things, not only the brainchip. Did he really think having the chip in his head would allow him to see a dead woman's life? There was speculation that their memories or personalities were downloaded into their chips, but without other technologies to access it . . . He fell asleep again.
And dreamed that he stared out of her eyes, seeing what she saw and feeling what she felt. What she did was both repulsive and thrilling. It was also entirely for the whims of her followers. She killed sometimes, but only because that was what they wanted. She had sex for the same reason. She was so guileless that she seemed like a child, attention-seeking but innocent. If she was corrupted and did vile things, it was because they had corrupted her.
In the end she sought to get away from them. They would have killed her, drowned in their obsession and need for her.
He woke trembling cold and aching from sleeping on the rocky surface. He didn't know if he'd actually accessed some part of her chip's data. Awake, only snippets of images and feelings lingered. For all he knew, his brain had made it up.
He dangled his feet over the rocky shelf. The tide was coming in; the water in the cave was rising. The avatar was safe, it wouldn't reach the rocky shelf where she lay, but it was time to go home. Time to face his father with what he'd done.
Stepping out of the cave, he swayed, nauseated, when Sol's rays struck his face. Grabbing the jagged edge to steady himself, he saw it was midday. An even bigger surge of nausea followed―his father would be angry for good reason. He'd never disappeared for so long.
The direct way home would take him past the dig on the beach. He clenched tight at the thought of running into his father in front of the other excavators. He'd hike inland, the long way back, even though it was dense with thorny vegetation. His sandals and light clothes wouldn't offer much protection, but he'd cope.
On the way back, sweat poured down his face. The air was stuffy and buzzed with insects, many of which happily attacked his exposed skin. He'd be swollen with bites and solar-red by evening. He gritted his teeth and kept going.
After a while, he found himself pawing at the back of the neck. Dimly he realized that it wasn't the biting bugs, but the tiny wound where he'd injected the chip. It pulsed. Maybe oozed. He couldn't tell if it was only slick sweat.
His lips curled, idiot. He hadn't sanitized his skin. Nevermind, he was close to home. They had a medic's kit. He'd clean the wound, take a round of antibiotics.
When he finally stepped into the mod-house, his whole body shook, sweat poured off him. He'd been hoping his father wouldn't be home, but as he crossed the doorway he collapsed, rolling into a ball and crying out for his dad to help him. His neck throbbed badly, and he had small cuts and scrapes and bites all over. His skin was stretched drum-tight and ached from Sol's burn.
He stayed on the cool floor until he recovered enough to crawl into his bedroom and into his bed. He wrapped a sheet around his body, telling himself over and over that he'd be okay.
A few hours of sleep. Then he could face his father.
#
This is what she told the apprentice:
She had won the love of thousands, of hundreds of thousands. She had achieved the pinnacle of success. For a glorious moment she had more followers than any of the other avatars. For a moment she possessed all their adulation, and it felt to her, their very souls.
For a moment . . .
Do you remember, my child, the story of how the cruel gods were overthrown, how they lost control of their followers? Of course you do. It was the most triumphant story of them all.
And so it was that this avatar, the most wantonly cruel god of them all, fell from her pinnacle of glory, as her followers began to abandon her. So many, too many.
She screamed at them not to leave her. Those who stayed promised to love her forever, as long as she told them where she was. Out of desperation, she agreed.
The last of her followers came to her by the dozens on a desolate stretch of beach at the very edge of the Dome. They surrounded her as the Dome cracked, and pieces began to fall. Above them, a bright blue sky opened up. Hot bright Sol was shining down.
It was unbearable. Her followers cried out for her to save them, pressing her from all sides, until she fell, smothered, beneath them.
As she lay dying, they made their final choice and followed her into death.
Was she sorry, my child? What do you think her last whispered words were?
Follow me!
#
Forgive me!
Lucian woke, jerking up, rasping the last words of the avatar, "Forgive me!"
For a moment he stared sightlessly, remembering the avatar's final regret as she died, confused and alone in her sea cave, and the last of her followers died on the beach outside.
His father sat next to him, bitterness churning his gaze, lips coiled in revulsion. "Do you know what you've been saying? Lucian, what have you done?"
"Dad, listen." He cringed at the breaking of his voice. "Listen. The Dome wasn't evil, the artificial being that made up the rules wasn't evil. It was only technology. The avatars didn't mean for any of it to happen. They had no idea what they were part of."
He had made some version of the argument all summer, but now he spoke with the conviction of truth. His father would see that he had been wrong. The people of New California would learn that the avatars were as manipulated as their followers. They'd been as confused as children when the end came. Instead of believing the avatars were cruel gods, they could see them for what they were, flawed people. The knowledge would free the people of New California to benefit from avatar technology.
His father tilted him up gently. "Swallow this antibiotic first. We can talk―" His voice hitched. "―later. Right now you're sick and need to rest."
Too exhausted to argue more, Lucian drank down the pill, then sank deep into his bed. Later. He'd explain later. Finally his father would understand.
#
The apprentice flailed his hands, unable to dispel the visions of the avatar. Somehow he found the strength to scream for help. The excavators woke up, surprised. Several roused themselves and followed his screams to the edge of the cliff.
Our apprentice! What's wrong with him?
They tried to subdue the boy, feeling how he burned with fever as though in the throes of illness, except that it gave him terrifying strength. The boy wept and jeered. He asked for help and spit insults, as if he was speaking in two voices at the same time.
They tried to hold him, but he broke free of their grip and stumbled closer to the cliff's edge. For a moment he hovered there, his body frozen while his face showed the strain of a terrible struggle.
The excavators reached out again, pleadingly, but the apprentice turned his back on them, and flung himself off the cliff.
#
It was too late to stop the avatar's chip from implanting in his son's brain like a hideous parasite. He tried not to think of its nano-filaments branching out, but the image proved impossible to stop. It was a hideous parasite. To kill it, to burn out the chip in Domespeak, would kill its host.
To leave it inside was unthinkable.
He waited until Lucian fell into unconsciousness, drugged past the point of dreaming. He rose, his body cramping horribly, and pulled a morphine vial from the med-kit. The sedative he'd given Lucian combined with the morphine would―
Lucian wouldn't feel a thing.
He injected his son who, corrupted by the avatar's chip, had become her puppet.
Lucina's father cupped his face in his hands, but did not cry. Not before he figured out how Lucian's death could mean something. Could do good. He leaned over and wiped the sheen of sweat from the boy's forehead, then closed his eyelids all the way.
His gaze dragged off Lucian's face and onto a book by the bedside, Parables for Children after Domefall. It was a book for young children, full of simplistic wisdom. Lucian loved it and had taken it everywhere on their journeys.
He flipped through, not bothering to read, the words a blur. At the end of the book were blank pages, which encouraged the young reader to write and draw to make sense of the stories. Lucian never had. His son had always been careful and precise, unwilling to make a mark he couldn't easily take back.
Until the day he had.
Lucian's father closed his eyes and tried to purge his mind of everything except the taste and smell of the fresh salty breeze. He breathed slowly, and thought of nothing at all. It lasted only a moment until the words struck him.
His eyes opened, wet with unshed tears. The tightness in his chest eased just enough.
He took up a pen and began to write: Child . . . but soon I cannot call you that. You are nearly grown, and every day more world-wise.